Review: The Pitch and The China Incident

Natalie Bochenski

The Pitch and The China Incident allow for powerhouse performances by Hugh Parker and Barbara Lowing. Photo: Queensland Theatre Company

The Queensland Theatre Company has opened its 2013 season with two one-person, one-act plays by Australian writer Peter Houghton.

The Pitch and The China Incident are both comedies – the first whimsical, the second fantastical – that allow for powerhouse performances by Hugh Parker and Barbara Lowing.

It’s their talent that will stay with you once the metaphorical curtain has fallen, as while both plays prove to be great entertainment, neither is probably resonant enough to really lodge in your memory.

Hugh Parker as Walter Weinermann, a wannabe screenwriter preparing to pitch a movie to producers with the money to actually make it in The Pitch. Photo: Queensland Theatre Company

The Pitch stars Hugh Parker as Walter Weinermann, a wannabe screenwriter preparing to pitch a movie to producers with the money to actually make it.

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He’s got the basic plot worked out, but not the ending. So he runs through it one more time, casting it as he goes, adding in special effects and soundtracks, and trying not to be distracted by the spectre of a failed relationship.

Under the direction of Catarina Hebbard, Hugh Parker struts and frets like a man possessed. Walter is scruffy and awkward (his surname itself is wordplay on that cinematic tradition of “the little guy”), but he’s a big dreamer, and Parker uses the cramped studio apartment set brilliantly to bring his movie to life.

Barbara Lowing as Bea Pontivec in The China Incident plays a high-powered diplomat with direct phone lines to some of the world’s most powerful – and terrible – people. Photo: Queensland Theatre Company

At certain points I wanted to see Walter even ramp up the mania further, but I accept that may have resulted in Parker bursting blood vessels in his eyes. As it is, he produced extraordinary impressions of famous movie stars that must be commended.

Near the end, Walter makes some choices that, while understandable from the lovesick, didn’t sit well for me coming from a desperately keen and passionate writer. Houghton’s script is a satire on the style and clichés of Hollywood movies; so it’s somewhat ironic that due to Walter’s passion for his project I was somewhat disappointed with its somewhat Hollywood ending.

Simone Romaniuk’s clever set design allowed Walter’s apartment to be spun around to become Bea Pontivec’s spotless, starkly white office for The China Incident.

Peter Houghton's script is a satire on the style and clichés of Hollywood movies. Photo: Queensland Theatre Company

Bea is a high-powered diplomat with direct phone lines to some of the world’s most powerful – and terrible – people. She’s a player and a problem-solver, but even someone as connected as she is can have a bad day.

This play was a grower for me. Everything about Bea put me off at first – her dress, her tone of voice, her office, her habit of swapping phones from ear-to-ear – but it’s by design. Bea is an unsympathetic character, but as we learn more about her job and her family through an unending series of phone calls, we come to delight in her attempts to get herself out of an increasingly larger pile of manure.

While both plays require the actors to memorise intricate scripts, Barbara Lowing has arguably a tougher job, having to remember which phone to pick up and when, and which person she is talking to, at what part of the conversation they’re up to. She does it superbly, incorporating any stumbles into the flow.

By the end Bea is a physical and emotional wreck, and the audience is both revelling in her distress and willing her to succeed. The climax is not unexpected, but once again, these plays are character studies, and Lowing’s reaction is supremely entertaining.

This is enjoyable theatre if not hugely challenging; a pleasant start to QTC's year.

The Pitch and The China Incident plays at the Cremorne Theatre, QPAC until March 9.